Constants
by OneWhoTurns
Summary: "Do you ever feel like maybe… we've done this before?" (aka Alex really deserves a hug)


He's nearly asleep when she says it. The movie ended what feels like ages ago, the channel turned down to near mute now, playing infomercial after infomercial.

"Can I ask you something?"

They're laying on either end of the couch, Jonas taking most of the middle section for his legs, socked toes brushing against a flannel-clad hip while Alex has her knees hooked over the back cushions. The low light washes away any color, and her face is a weird map of light and shadow in the flickering glow off the TV. She shifts a little, legs sliding down to wedge behind his, and any read he might've had on her facial expression is lost in shadow as she turns her head.

"Hm." It's meant to be a grunt of assent, but he's half asleep and the noise catches. He clears his throat. "Yeah, sure."

"And… do me a favor and… just…"

The memory tickles at the base of his skull. Walking over creaking boards, trekking the terraced dock of the Adler Estate. _"Hey, do me a favor… I'm gonna ask you something… And you just answer, and not… question it. Okay?"_ It's weird, remembering this seemingly random fragment of a conversation he just barely eavesdropped on. When Clarissa maybe wasn't Clarissa.

Alex is quiet, and Jonas wonders if she's remembering, too.

The silence stretches a few more seconds, and he feels himself lulled by the murmur of the TV again.

"Do you—" She pauses, then barrels on. "Do you ever feel like maybe… we've done this before?"

There's a chill in his blood, as logic and reason and the very natural 'oh fuck oh shit oh no' emotional response all battle it out in his head as he stays completely still. He must have been quiet for too long, because her voice comes out of the dark again, no longer nervous and questioning but a mix of bemused and sardonic. "Jonas? Still alive, bud?"

He hooks his calf over her knee, as though to reassure her, but he's still not sure how to answer. "I'm…" Yeah, yeah, he's alive, he's awake. Just at a loss for words.

As he falls quiet again, she shifts in her seat, and he can almost feel the anxiety rising in her.

"How much?"

When she pauses, and he senses her unspoken question, he clarifies, voice wary but even-keeled;

"How much of it?"

Another nervous shifting, like a child asked who stole from the cookie jar. One foot buries itself between the back of the couch and its cushions, knocking them a bit askew.

It's fine, he could hardly see her face before, anyway.

"Um… All of it?"

He hadn't thought he'd been holding his breath, but now he feels it rush out of him like he's been punched in the gut, kicked in the chest. He wants to tell her no, wants to deny any of her concerns, wants to say that's impossible— but he doesn't. He can't. Especially because, well; this is Alex. She's the one who always seems to know what's going on. Seemed to know. Seems to know.

He wonders if this is why he gets confused sometimes, if this is why he sometimes forgets just who came back on that ferry, when he counts the bodies and isn't sure — sometimes it's four, sometimes five, sometimes six of them. He's not sure who's missing now, or who was missing before.

Alex scoots closer. The muscles of her leg bunch and flex and he feels as she digs her toes deeper and deeper into the sofa. "I'm serious, Jonas, I think–"

"No, no, I– I get it. It's just-" He lets out a strained breath. "Christ, Alex, that's… a lot. To process." Their legs are tangled up together now, and since his hands can't reach her to steady her, reassure her, that will have to do. "I believe you."

There's a long silence, and Jonas can imagine her chewing anxiously at her lip like she sometimes does, picking at her cuticles, he can feel the subtle movement as her toes point and flex.

"How long is 'all of it?' Until we…. y'know…?" She's not exactly _not_ prone to exaggeration. Maybe it's not so much life-long repetition as shorter loops? Maybe it's just a couple months, maybe just the end of the school year, there's only a week to go-

"No, not– I don't think so, anyway. Just until graduation. A little after."

Graduation. Technically, that was last weekend – the ceremony, anyway. Clarissa was already packing for New York. Unless she didn't mean- unless it wasn't… _Her _graduation? "Jesus, Alex, that's a year from now."

"…Yeah." She clears her throat, lamely. "Well."

Jonas stares at the ceiling. His mind is half frenzy and half flatline. There are thoughts there, but he can't seem to keep them in order. As always these days, he focuses most on staying levelheaded. "Did you– I mean, do I… Have you told me before?"

"I… I'm not sure." He's not sure if she's lying or not. "I don't remember all of it, just– just some things. And they're not always the same. There are… well, constants, you know? Things that were already in motion stay in motion or… whatever."

"I feel like you're trying to make a physics metaphor for something, um… extraphysical."

"Metaphysical," she corrects automatically, before adding, "No, not–" She shifts again, scooting closer, and the couch cushion that had fallen between them is jostled around as she sandwiches one of his legs between hers like a pillow. He's about to make a comment about how she probably doesn't want to get her face so close to his feet, but she's talking again. "I mean like– Like Clarissa. She'd already had plans for school in New York, so she always- well–" Alex pauses, cutting herself off, and the sudden silence feels a little too full of fear.

It clicks into place for Jonas - or half-clicks, like a puzzle piece that's missing the actual picture. He knows something, he's just not sure what. "She's the one who's missing sometimes, right?"

Even with the cushion blocking their view, he can tell she's looking at him. Thinking. He flexes his foot until she grabs and pushes it away and he kind of hopes he almost hit her in the face with it. The thought at least causes a grim smile to curve his lips. Not so much as her fingers tap at his ankle. "Yeah." She's very quiet. "…You've never said that before."

He's tempted to point out that she said she hadn't told him before, but bites his tongue. "What did I say?"

"You said…" Her nails dig in for a second, then release him before she's picking at the threads of his socks.

"Seriously, Alex, these socks are on their second day, I really don't think you want them that close to your no–"

"You say, 'are you sure?' and you say 'but she's right there,' and you say, 'just look how happy they are.'"

They?

More pieces are falling into place, but all of them are blank and it's so _frustrating_ to know that there's so much he doesn't know.

Jonas sits up, dragging his leg from Alex's grasp, despite her weak attempt to keep hold. Pushing the fallen cushion aside, he sits cross-legged across from her, eyes narrowed.

"So… That time by the cliffs. When you went all-" He motions vaguely at his face, "Creepy dead-eyes sandwich-talk." There's a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. "When you snapped out of it, you said you saw your brother."

The hint of a smile that so briefly appeared turns hollow. She's still sort of curled on her side, examining the stitches on her pillow instead of his socks. "Yeah." He can hear how close her voice is to a croak, and he knows that feeling, that burn in the throat and emptiness in the chest, and he knows that's how he sounds when he talks about his mom.

He's not expecting the short pathetic laugh that huffs out of her. "Why am I– this is so stupid." A forced, bitter smile appears on her face and she wipes the back of her hand across her cheeks, light reflecting even more from smeared tears, mumbling, cynically, "Like death is even a thing anymore."

It hurts him to see her so-often-tough exterior crack. Not in the 'wow, awkward, girl is crying,' way, but in the 'fuck, no, Alex, please stop hurting,' way. His fingers twitch, but she's just too far out of reach. He scoots closer, and it's his turn to play with the fabric of her pajamas, scratching at the hem of her flannel pants.

"How does all that…" He pauses, trying to fit his words together. "So… How do you get Michael back?" Because she does. He knows she does. In the same way he knows Clarissa never existed, he knows Michael never died. Sometimes four, sometimes five, sometimes six.

"It's-" Alex gestures in the air, dismissively. "It's just- it happens, sometimes. If we never go to the lake, he doesn't drown. It's– it's happened… a lot. But–" She's angrily biting at her lip, still not catching his eye. "The point is–" she lets out a frustrated sigh. "The point is that it _has_ happened a lot. He's still alive, again and again, and then he's dead again, and it's– it's losing him all over again. It always hurts."

Jonas drags her a foot closer on the couch, pulling her legs into his lap. "That's okay," he reminds her, "It's supposed to."

Alex is shaking her head as soon as he says 'okay,' looking sad and frustrated and like maybe she _has_ lived her whole life over and over and over again. "That's– But–"

She didn't push him away, didn't retreat, didn't argue with him when he pulled her closer, so he risks reaching out to brush a thumb over her wrist.

He thinks she might be shaking. Almost imperceptibly, like there's something humming under her skin, and Jonas watches her deflate, shrinking as she lets out a long breath. When she does speak it's quiet, and so so tired. "…What about when it doesn't?"

He knows he can't possibly imagine how she feels. How dehumanizing it must be to remain unaffected. His mouth is bitter from her doubt and fear and hopelessness and he just wants to protect her from it. "Hey…" She's so easy to slide across the leather couch, to pull in to his chest. "Hey, c'mere." And he's pretty sure she's still crying and he's pretty sure he doesn't care because he needs to be here for her right now and he's going to, and he's going to force any thoughts beyond just _being here for her_ out of his head.

He doesn't regret it, not at all, because her hands are clutching at his shirt and her face is buried in his chest and she's such a quiet crier, he's kind of surprised. Maybe she just doesn't have any tears left to cry anymore– and Christ, is that depressing.

A heavy hand rubs her back, and she's not wracked with sobs, just shaking slightly. "It's gonna— _We're_ gonna…" He can't say they'll be okay. She'll know he's lying. Or, if not_ lying,_ that his words are pretty meaningless.

He settles on: "We have a year." And he thinks maybe a year is a hell of a lot better than one night.

* * *

_A/N: As much as I like how this turned out, I'm kinda eh on the title and am very much open to suggestions. Titles are often my least favorite part of writing. Drop me a comment if you have any ideas, or just to lemme know what you think of how I figured things around. I'm always curious to know other people's ideas on things like character ages and timelines for this game. (In my head Clarissa's a senior, Nona/Ren/Alex are juniors, Jonas would've been a senior except for juvie, and the overarching loop goes from late april/early may to summer of the next year, including all of Alex's senior year, since the epilogue bit mentions where they're all going to school, etc.)_


End file.
